MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The joint clinical trials of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine and UK-Swedish AstraZeneca’s vaccine against the coronavirus will start very soon, head of the research center that developed Sputnik V, Alexander Gintsburg said Thursday.
“[Russian Direct Investment Fund] RDIF and AstraZeneca agreed to hold joint clinical trials, which would use Oxford-made component as the first injection, and Sputnik V component as the second one. As far as I understand, these trials will begin in the near future,” Gintsburg said, as aired on Rossiya 24 broadcaster.
In this handout photo released by Hungarian Foreign Ministry, laboratory assistants carry a bag with Russia’s coronavirus vaccine Gam-COVID-Vac, trade-named Sputnik V inside, in Budapest, Hungary
Earlier, the head of Russia’s Gamaleya research institute that developed the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine expressed the belief that AstraZeneca’s vaccine’s efficacy might increase if combined with a component of Sputnik V.
On 11 December, UK-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca accepted cooperation offer from developers of Russian coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V to study Covid-19 vaccine combinations.
According to the Russian sovereign wealth fund, these trials will help the UK-Swedish company study whether the efficacy of their vaccine can be increased by a combined approach.
In August, Russia became the first country to register a COVID-19 vaccine, which was named Sputnik V. The clinical trials of the Sputnik V vaccine, developed by the Gamaleya research institute, have demonstrated that its efficacy rate is over 90 percent.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
